Tech | October 11, 2009 | 7 comments

Proposal Would Turn San Francisco Bridge into a City

source: http://www.livescience.com/technology/091007-bridge-city.html

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DeliaTheArtist
"San Francisco's Bay Bridge is being redone; a large portion of the bridge will remain unused, but in good shape. What can city planners do with this unique, unused space?

Local San Francisco architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello thought hard about the fate of the Bay Bridge, and hit upon the same idea as Gibson. If you take a close look at the abandoned side of the bridge (see photo), that span of the bridge is still very sturdy, and could easily bear the weight of buildings or other structures. Why dismantle and waste it when you could turn it into a unique neighborhood (see photo)?

Successful bridge neighborhoods have been built in Florence, Italy and in London, England. Why not here in the United States?"

Link includes a PDF of the actual proposal. What do you think about building a bridge city?
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7 comments // Proposal Would Turn San Francisco Bridge into a City

  • Vb86Vic
  • digitrash
    • 0
      digitrash  

    • Neat idea for architects and sci-fi authors to play with, but a horrible idea if you think of the engineering and the location.

      The Bay Bridge is NOT "in good shape" for where it is. It is being replaced because it is structurally unsound for an earthquake zone. It is supported by nearly 80 year old timber pilings driven into soft bay mud - among the worst places to build anything in the bay area due to the risk of liquefaction in an earthquake. And if one thing is certain, SF will get more big earthquakes.

      This week marks 20 years since the bay area's last major earthquake, where yes, part of that bridge collapsed due to the shaking.

      One of the other ideas being surfaced for reusing the old bridge is to ship sections of it off to be used as bridges in other places where earthquakes are less of a concern.

    • 2 years ago
  • pjacobs51
  • becktionary83
    • 0
      becktionary83  

    • Doesn't this pose some sort of high risk to those that would be living there? I seem to recall part of the Bay Bridge collapsing during the 89' earthquake.

      I guess you could always chance it...

    • 2 years ago
  • veronaaa
  • slovelett
    • 0
      slovelett  

    • Very nice.

      I've seen this project before but the PDF linked to from the article is the best description and images I've seen.

      I hope this gets built.

    • 2 years ago
  • LozRiva
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